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Month: December 2017

In the morning, as the sun climbs in the sky, my shadow gets shorter and shorter. In the afternoon, as sun gets lower and lower in the sky, my shadow grows again. At local noon, when the sun is at its highest, my shadow is as short as it’s going to be that day. My noon-time shadow is my shortest shadow.

How high the sun gets at local noon depends on the time of year. In the summer, it gets much higher than in the winter. On the day of the winter solstice, the noon-time sun is lower than the noon-time sun on any other day of the year. Therefore, of all of my shortest (noon-time) shadows, the one on the winter solstice will be the longest. It’s my longest shortest shadow.

Today is the winter solstice, and I’d hoped to photograph my longest shortest shadow on the beach at Portobello in Edinburgh. But implicit in all of the above is that the sun will be visible in the sky at the critical moment in order to cast the shadow. In Scotland in December this can be a tricky condition to meet, and it wasn’t quite met today. My shadow was barely visible. Since this idea came to me, I’ve only had one chance to photograph my longest shortest shadow, back in 2010.